


Every Color Bleeds Into the Same

by TheAllRealNumbersSymbol



Category: CSI: NY, John Wick (Movies), Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Bomb threat, Bombs, Cover Identity, Eventual Happy Ending, Gen, Implied Danny/Lindsay, Lab is Attacked, Mystery, No Romance for John Wick, Past Character Death, Receptionist Work, Samaritan is Up to No Good As Always, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-12
Updated: 2020-12-12
Packaged: 2021-03-10 18:55:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,706
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28002015
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheAllRealNumbersSymbol/pseuds/TheAllRealNumbersSymbol
Summary: Post Parabellum and Samaritan coming online in Person of Interest. Spoilers for all three movies and POI.Now that Samaritan has struck down the High Table, and co-opted the remaining agents of it, John Wick is out luck and options, so he tracks down Harold Finch, who through the Machine, gives him a new identity and a new job.  He did not expect that that job would entail him working as a receptionist at the NYPD crime lab.Nor did he expect that Samaritan would eventually assault the lab.
Kudos: 14





	Every Color Bleeds Into the Same

**Author's Note:**

> This story is brought to you by "please evict this fanfiction from my head so I don't have to think about it anymore." Additional consideration provided by "I should never have watched the John Wick movies."
> 
> So, some backstory here and boy is there a lot of it. This was originally supposed to be one of three stories. The first could have been a CSI:NY/ Person of Interest crossover. The second would have been a John Wick/Person of Interest crossover, and then there was this. But this was the one that showed up and wouldn't go a way so maybe it's a stand alone? Maybe I'll write the other ones someday? I have no idea. 
> 
> But anyway, the would-have-been stories explain how John Wick knows Team Machine, and why Detective Fusco calls Wick "Thing 2:" in the story that so far is not, Fusco calls Reese and Wick "Thing 1" and "Thing 2" respectively. He also complains about Wick when he thinks that Finch has gotten a matched pair of enforcers, both of whom are quiet, deadly, favor suits, and are named John, before Wick explains he's just passing through, which admittedly would have been fun to write but the rest of the plot is still nebulous and vague so I make no promises.
> 
> Anyway, please enjoy the part I was able to write. :/

John watched as people came and went in the office. Next to him, a brunette, college-age, dropped into the other chair and slid her backpack under the desk. “Morning, John!” she said cheerfully as she set her thermal mug down on the desk. A thin gold band set with a diamond glistened on her left ring finger. 

He grunted a response, and the day began. 

Why the Machine had given him a cover identity that led to him being a receptionist at a police precinct in New York City was something he couldn’t fathom, but with the High Table fallen, and those who were left alive co-opted by Samaritan, the best option he had left was to live the new life the Machine had given him. 

Samaritan's slaughter of the Table operatives had been brutal and ruthless, a scouring down to the ground. Underground, last he had heard, had been missed, and the Bowery King played both sides against each other and so far managed to scrape by. 

But John was content to stay out of it. In a way, Samaritan had solved a lot of his problems. He didn’t have to worry that anyone from his past would come looking for him. 

The only thing he had to worry about was whether or not Samaritan was going to come looking for him. For now, though, Jonathan Telfer seemed to have stayed off the radar of Decima Technologies. 

Even if this wasn’t where he had thought the Machine would put him. 

“Good morning Leila, Jonathan,” Detective Mac Taylor said as he came into the building. Leila responded cheerfully. John didn’t. Mac didn’t seem to mind or notice, instead heading back to his office.

(-)

Tracking down Detective Fusco was the only thing John could think to do after everything went wrong. After they began the war against the High Table…

...after the slaughter began. Ruthless agents, answering neither to the high table nor the Bowery King, stormed onto the scene, shooting indiscriminately. Even the agents of the High Table, in their fine armor, couldn’t withstand the armor-piercing rounds that were fired at them. 

John had take out enough Decima agents to get himself and Earl out of the situation. Earl went back to the Bowery King to report on what happened. John had gone looking for information. 

It wasn’t that hard to get on the police bands on the radio, listen in, and track the detective down after that. 

Fusco had not been expecting him. John figured this out based on the especially crude remark that the detective unleashed when he turned around the crime scene and nearly crashed into John. “Thing 2! What the hell are you doing here?”

“I need to talk to Finch,” John explained. 

Fusco looked perturbed. “Yeah well a lotta water’s gone under the bridge since the last time I saw you. I’ll ...I’ll see what I can do.”

“What’s Decima?” It was a name that John had heard dropped during the slaughter of the High Table and Bowery men. 

“Couldn’t tell you. Glasses might. I’ll see what I can do,” Fusco repeated. “Where are you staying?”

“I don’t know.” There had been one other place in New York City that John had tried to get to. But all he had found when he got there were a lot of bodies and they’d been dead for a while. Something had moved in on the High Table, and it was nothing good.

Fusco pulled out one of his business cards and, frowning, wrote a note on the back of it. “Go to this address and tell the proprietor that I sent you. He owes me a favor. It’s not a great hotel, but I’ll know where to tell Glasses and Wonder Boy to find you.”

John looked at the address on the card, and then at the detective. “Do they allow dogs?”

A day later, John had gotten a phone call at the hotel, telling him to be at Central Park the next day. John did as he was told. He had walked Central Park, until he heard a voice behind him. “You seem to draw trouble wherever you go, Mr. Wick.”

He turned. Behind him stood Finch, Bear on a leash at his side. 

“Something happened.” It wasn’t a great explanation, but Finch seemed to gather what John was driving at. 

“Walk with me,” Finch said, his voice low. 

They walked more. Slowly, as Finch’s stilted walk held them back. Bear panted on his leash in spite of the cool day, licked John’s hand, and went on with keeping an eye on their surroundings. 

They walked into a pedestrian tunnel, and it was there that John stopped walking and turned to face Finch. “Something happened. An attack on the High Table.” He told Finch what had happened. The other man listened and said nothing until John was finished. 

When John stopped talking, Finch frowned and looked disturbed. “There’s something I need to tell you, Mr. Wick. A lot has changed since the last time we spoke. I’m afraid we’ve all been driven underground by...” there was no way that there was cell phone reception there in the middle of the tunnel, and there were no security cameras, but Finch looked around anyway, almost compulsively, as though he was afraid someone was still listening, would hear them. “Samaritan.”

“What is Samaritan?” John had asked. 

Finch told him. Told him what had happened, about Samaritan's war on the Machine. “We’re all underground now.” Finch repeated. “I can get a hold of Ms. Groves and ask her about a new life for you.” Finch looked at him. “New job. New identification. New everything. You wouldn’t be John Wick anymore.”

It was a tantalizing idea, to stop being himself. But if he wasn’t John Wick, would he still be the man Helen had loved? “And, if you do this, no one will ever know who I am?”

“Not unless you tell them, or draw Samaritan’s attention to yourself,” Finch replied. 

Samaritan’s attention is something he doesn’t need. The High Table was bad enough, and he knows what Samaritan’s agents can do. The opportunity to reinvent himself seemed almost too good. 

“I want to be someone else.” John finally said. “Give me a new identity.”

Finch nodded. “I’ll see what I can do.”

“Can you take data off a phone?” John asked. 

“It depends a lot on what happened to the phone,” Finch said. “Why?”

John pulled out his phone. Cracked. Previously soaked in the pool at the Continental. There was sand in the inner working after his time in the desert, he was sure. “I need a video clip off of this.”

Finch took the broken electronic gingerly and looked it over. “I can’t give you any guarantees Mr. Wick. But if you’ll leave this with me, I’ll see what I can do.”

John considered it. Somewhere in there was the video he’d shot of Helen. Finch was a technology genius, and his best bet on getting that clip back. “I would appreciate anything you can do.”

Finch slid the damaged phone into his pocket. “I’ll be in touch, Mr. Wick.”

(-)

And so John Wick had become Jonathan Telfer, an ex-Marine who ended up working as a receptionist for NYPD’s crime scene investigation lab, on the same floor as the investigators. It wasn’t a difficult job, though he wasn’t overly fond of answering phone calls.

That was where Leila had been more then helpful. Working as she was on her college degree, she was always looking for an opportunity to squeeze some homework in. They had come to an arrangement. John handled the emails, scheduling, mail sorting and so in. In return, Leila answered the phone when it rang and when it wasn’t ringing, she was free to get on her laptop and work on her homework. 

It was a good arrangement as far as John was concerned. He used his daily rounds in the lab to take in the place, trying not to look for weak points or think about how all of that glass was probably not bulletproof and maybe not a good idea for walls. 

At the end of the day, John went home to a small apartment outside the city. He could see the skyline off in the distance from his window. On the wall in the bedroom was one picture, of himself and Helen. Finch had been able to retrieve the video clip off his phone, and a still from that video was now framed on the wall. The clip itself was burned to a disc, safe in a hard copy, and it was in a small fire safe in the apartment. Helen’s daisy bracelet lived on his nightstand. 

His Dog didn’t seem to mind the sudden change. He was always waiting when John came home, ready to go out for an evening walk. 

Sometimes at work, John saw Detective Fusco when a case brought him down to the crime lab. Sometimes he saw Reese, now disguised as a detective himself. They would nod at him, a knowing nod of people who knew each other in their past lives, but never openly acknowledged it. 

And the days passed, one after the other.

(-)

John has no scope of reference for office work, at least, none until this point. Still, he thinks, it’s probably not a bad place to work. Leila’s hours are fewer then his, but when she leaves at three pm to run off to class, most phone calls have dropped off by then anyway.

Sometimes one or the other detectives will invite him, and Leila if she happens to be there, to a late dinner in the break room if they’re all there late. It doesn’t happen to John much, as his work day is supposed to end at five pm every day, but sometimes if the lab is short handed he gets drafted into overtime to run paperwork or samples all over the lab or any other half dozen odd jobs that need doing without taking any scientists away from their work. 

Detective Messer comes by the copy room late one afternoon, where John is busy sorting papers and stuffing them into the appropriate folders. Why everyone had to print everything at the same time is a little beyond him, but it’s something to do at the end of the day and as long as he’s in here, any potential phone calls go to voicemail and he can probably avoid them until Leila gets in tomorrow. 

“Yo John, it’s lookin’ like it’s gonna be a late one. We’re all ordering out. You want anything?”

“I’m fine.”

“Come on man. Everyone’s gotta eat, and Mac agreed to feed us as long as we don’t get too crazy about it. Get yourself a sandwich or something.”

John turned to face him, and Messer responded by shoving a take out menu in his face. “Honestly I gotta tell ya that this deli does the best pastrami paninni I ever had,” Messer announced as John took the offered and offending menu. The detective has clearly made up his mind that everyone will eat, so John looks through the menu and selects a sandwich, pointing it out to the other man. 

“Cool,” Messer notes it down on his notepad. “Whaddaya want to drink with it?”

“Coke,” John replied. It was a safe answer. 

“Got it!” Messer grinned at him. “I’ve had the sandwich you’re getting before too and I can assure you, you won’t be disappointed.”

John doesn’t pay the matter any more mind after Messer leaves, instead going back to sorting the papers. He’s just finished and is getting ready to deliver all the folder to their proper places when Messer comes back. “Come over to the break room. Food’s here. We’re all gonna eat. The folders can wait.”

John follows him to the break room. Bonasera, Taylor, Hawkes, Ross, Monroe, and Flack are all there, scattered around the various tables. Hawkes and Ross are already eating, digging into sandwiches stacked high with meat and toppings. 

“Here’s yours,” Messer hands him a brown bag and tall paper cup, both with his last name – the one the Machine had given him – written on the outside. John takes a spot standing at a tall table whose chairs have mysteriously disappeared and unwraps his food. Taylor walks back in. “I took Sid’s food to him,” he announces to Messer as he picks up his own bag. 

“Cool,” Messer replied. He was sitting with Ross and Hawkes at their table. “I put your card in your bag." 

Taylor opened the bag and extracted a credit card that he slid into his pocket. Most of the other tables are full now, so he comes to where John is standing. “Mind if I join you?”

“Go ahead,” John replied. 

John eats his dinner and listens to the others talk about the case, puzzling out the evidence and which suspect makes the most sense. In a way, it’s kind of nice. He pays attention to what’s going on around him, because he always does. 

John wraps up the end of his sandwich and puts it back in his bag when he’s finished. Taylor noticed. “Done?”

“Saving it. For my dog,” John replied. 

“You have a dog?!” He hadn’t know that Monroe was listening, but suddenly the brunette was right there. “What kind of dog?”

“Pit bull,” he replied. 

“Do you have a picture?” She asked. 

“No.”

“Take one and bring it in!” Monroe pleaded. “I want to see your dog!”

“Alright,” John agreed. She was nice. She reminded him, a little, of Helen. Someday she would marry Danny – anyone with eyes could see that coming – and he hoped they would be happy when it happened. 

For now, he’ll take a picture of his dog tonight and bring it in tomorrow.

(-)

The first warning sign that trouble is on the horizon comes in the form of a phone call. It was afternoon. John had been updating the schedule in the computer. Leila was on her laptop, absently chewing on the end of her pen as she looked at her digital textbook. When the phone rang, she picked it up without looking at it. “New York City Crime Lab, how may I direct you call?”

John felt more than saw the change come over her, and turned from the computer. Leila was pale. She reached down to her notebook, scribbled something out, and dropped it on the desk between them. 

Bomb threat. 

“And where would we need to look for that?” John heard her say behind him as he jumped to his feet and raced out of the room. 

Detective Taylor was in his office with Bonasera and Hawkes, He stopped talking when John burst in. “Bomb threat. Up front.” John told him. Taylor ran out of the room, calling behind him as he did. “Stella! Call Adam! I want a trace on the front desk phone!” Stella was picking up the phone on Mac’s desk as the two men ran from the room. 

“They still on the phone?” Mac asked as they raced back to the receptionist’s desk. 

“They were,” John replied. Whether or not they still were would remain to be seen. When the two men came out to the desk, Leila was still on the phone. Mac reached down and took it from her without a word. 

“This is Detective Mac Taylor. Why don’t you tell me what you want?” Mac kept his voice calm and level. There was a long pause as the other man listened. “So tell me-.” Mac stopped abruptly. Then he reached down and replaced the phone. “They hung up.” He looked at the two receptionists. “Starting today all mail will be getting checked before it comes in here. If either of you see anything suspicious, bring it my attention immediately.”

Leila, still looking pale, nodded. John said, “Yeah.”

Mac nodded and strode back into the lab proper. John suspected that he was on his way to find out what if anything the trace had told them.

(-)

Two days passed uneventfully, and then Mac reappeared one morning. Leila and John looked up at him as he approached. “We found the phone that was used to make the threat,” Mac told them.

“In a trash can?” John asked. 

Mac nodded. “In a trash can. It was a burner phone.”

John nodded. It was what he would have done, if he had wanted to phone in a threat and didn’t want to be found. He had never phoned a threat. It warned the target you were coming. Whoever these people were, it was sloppy of them to do so. 

“So what does that mean?” Leila asked. 

“We’ll keep examining the mail before it gets to this desk. I want both of you to alert me right away if anything seems suspicious or out of place. I would rather that you err on the side of caution, so don’t be afraid to come get me if you need me,” Mac said, glancing between them. 

Leila nodded. John nodded. He hoped that Leila wouldn’t leave over this. He liked their arrangement and he didn’t want to have to try and set up another plan with whoever would replace her. 

But days pass uneventfully after that. Only Detective Taylor seems to be holding some concern about the matter. There’s nothing he can do, though. It looks like a it’s a random prank call, and certainly his superiors want to believe that. 

John knows better. The tossed burner phone sticks out in his mind like a red flag, and dozens of those red flags, minded over the years, made him the effective assassin that he had been. But there’s nothing he can think to do about the matter that won’t alert the NYPD and by extension, Samaritan to who he really is. Finch might be able to back trace the burner phone, and he’d probably be better at doing it than anyone in the department. But trying to get a hold of Finch again is riddled with risk. 

This time, he’d prefer not to sacrifice his new life. NYPD will just have to handle it.

(-)

More time passes. The phone call fades to memory.

And then one day, flowers are delivered. 

John had been dropping the mail off to different people, and had come back to find a very large and very heavy looking vase containing a full color assault of flowers sitting on the table against the wall. Leila was on the phone, bending a florist’s card very gently between her fingers. “Yes, I’m trying to find about a flower delivery. There is no Detective Muldoon here. I’m wondering if this was delivered to us by mistake. Could you check your records and confirm the address for me? Yes, I’ll hold.”

“Nice flowers,” a voice said behind him.

“Yeah,” John replied. It was Adam Ross. John had heard him come in.

“Who are they for?” Adam asked. 

Leila had pressed the phone between her cheek and shoulder and was tapping her gel pen on her notebook, a sure sign that she was still on hold. 

“We don’t know yet,” John told him. 

“It must have been a pricey arrangement. Look at the size of that vase,” Ross said. 

The size of the vase. The vase isn’t so big it can’t be carried, but it’s large. Bulb-shaped. John has some experience in florist shops. He’s never seen a vase like that. It’s another red flag in his mind. Adam is walking towards the flowers to look at them more closely. “Hey, there’s another card down here,” he announced, and reached to pull it out. “Maybe there’s a name on it.”

The next seconds after that pass in slow motion for John, just like gun fights sometimes used to back in his assassin days. Adam pulls the card out. It’s a trap. John knows it. There’s not enough time to react to everything that needs reacted to. He’s gonna have to choose. “Leila!” His voice is a roar. “Get down!”

She looked up at her name, and whatever she saw in his face made her drop the phone and slide to the floor. The desk is solid, build and framed on three sides with heavy wood. She should be on the other side of the desk, John’s side at the farthest end away from the table, not just under it, so the whole weight of the furniture is between her and the blast. But it’s the best she can do. It’s the best he can do.

Then time moves at normal pace again. The vase, and whatever was hidden in it, explode. John tries to turn away, face his back to the blast. It still sends him flying. 

…

When John wakes up, he’s wet. The sprinklers have gone off. A siren must have gone off somewhere, too, because he can see the emergency lights flashing but he can’t hear them. He pushes back to his feet and makes his way over to Adam, who’s cut up and bleeding, but when John checks, he’s still alive. 

A hand is on his shoulder, and he looks up to see that Mac is saying something. John shakes his head, and signs, “bomb blast. I can’t hear you.”

There are other officers there now. John doesn’t recognize them, so they must not be regulars in the lab. Mac motions one of them over and says something to him. The officer turns to John and signs, “are you alright?”

“I’m okay,” John signs back. Behind them, he can see Detective Bonasera pulling Leila from under the desk. She looks unhurt. He should have warned her to cover her ears. He hopes she’s okay, and that she won’t quit over this. 

Sheldon Hawkes appears. Mac is checking on Adam. Mac and Sheldon exchange comments, and then Sheldon turns to the officer, who signs in turn to John, “come with us. We’re going to get you checked out.”

“No hospitals,” John replied, making the signs a little more forcefully then was really needed. 

The officer stopped to translate for Sheldon, and after Sheldon replied, turned back to John. “No. Not unless you need it.”

John nodded, and let Sheldon lead him out of the room, into the recesses of the lab itself.

(-)

Mac Taylor is not having a good day. The suspect in their active investigation had gotten away from them earlier, and now a bomb’s gone off in his lab. It’s not the first time that this has happened, but he didn’t set this one, so it annoys him. He’s got one receptionist who he hopes won’t be permanently deaf, and one that’s so shaken up that she may not come back.

Danny appears in his office. “What do we have?” Mac demands. 

“Low grade explosives, based on what we know so far,” Danny said. “Built to scare more then to hurt, though it didn’t stop it from hurting Adam.”

While Danny was talking, outside the glass windows of his office, Mac watched as John went walking by, back to the front desk. He can’t go in there. It’s a crime scene. But the officer out there will stop him. And he doesn’t have the translator with him anymore, so maybe his hearing is back. 

“How’s Adam?” Danny asked, dragging Mac’s attention back to the matter at hand. 

“He’ll be okay. Concussion. Bruises. They were still picking shards of the vase out of him when I called.” 

It annoys him hugely that this could happen here in his lab. All attacks on his lab annoy him. Someone has to pay for this. This perp will be very sorry when Mac finally lays hands on him. “Let me know if you can narrow down the type of explosives used. It might give us a lead on where to start looking.”

Danny nodded and left as Sheldon came in. 

“Well?” Mac asked. 

“Leila will be fine. She’s shaken up pretty bad but not hurt seriously. She said that John warned her to get down before the bomb went off. We’ve got the original card that she was still holding when she took cover. Stella’s talking to her, getting her statement and fingerprints so that we can eliminate her prints on the card. We may get a handwriting sample, but I’m guessing that whoever sent the flowers had the florist write the card, so that’ll be a dead end.”

“And Jonathan?”

“He’s banged up and bruised, but he’ll be okay,” Sheldon reported. “His hearing returned while I was checking him out. Mac, I don’t know what to tell you about him. This guy got knocked around by a bomb, face-planted into the floor, got up, and walked it off.”

Mac shrugged. “He was a Marine,” he said, as though that would explain everything. 

Sheldon nodded. “We’re pulling the security tape from up front now.”

“When you get it, I want to see it. Keep me posted.”

Sheldon nodded again and disappeared. 

Mac leaves his office when Sheldon does, and wanders up to the front of the building. John is waiting on the other side of the crime tape. He can’t get back to his desk. 

“Take the rest of the day off,” Mac said, and John turned to face him. “How’d you know it was a bomb?” Mac went on.

“The vase was too big,” John replied. 

Mac nodded. “You spent some time in florist shops?”

“I used to buy flowers sometimes. For my wife.”

“Where is she?”

“Dead.”

Mac nodded. There was a look on his face that said he knew the feeling. John remembered what he’d read about the man before he started working here, when Reese had dropped off the folder with his new cover identity and information on his new employers. Taylor’s wife had died in the 9/11 attacks. Mac didn’t push the questions any further. “Do you know how the flowers got in here?”

“One of the ladies from downstairs brought them up. I don’t know anything beyond that.” John looked at the wrecked front office. “Leila’s backpack is in there. She needs it.”

“I don’t think she’ll make it to class tonight. I’ll call and explain to her instructors myself if I have too. When we’re done processing the scene I’ll make sure we collect her things and put them in my office until she can pick them up,” Mac promised. John nodded. 

Mac nodded. “Go home Jonathan.” He clapped a hand on John’s shoulder for a moment, then turned and walked back down the hall.

(-)

The days after that are tense.

Adam comes back to work one morning, still sporting bandages, including one over his right eye. He works more slowly, in light of his injuries. But his spirits are good. 

John wouldn’t have placed any bets that Leila would come back, but she does. Shaken up thoroughly, but mostly unhurt and now back. Her fiance now drops her off and picks her up every morning and evening. She’s quieter. More subdued. Her bubbling enthusiasm that had at least made the days pass more quickly had disappeared, and John knew that only time would tell if that ever came back. 

He doesn’t like how she behaves now, more afraid when he’s out of the room. The bombing had scared her a lot. It irritates him. If Leila leaves, he might have to answer the phones himself and that would be worse. 

John wishes, again, that he could place a few phone calls to the network of Assassins or just call Finch and figure this out. The Machine would look at the surveillance feeds around the city and track down the bomber in no time. Then he could go pay a house call and get the point across. There are ways to make people understand things without having to kill them, and he knows some of those ways. 

But the specter of Samaritan and the remnants of the High Table that might still be out there hold him back. He’d like to stay retired this time. 

So he’ll have to wait, like everyone else, while NYPD works to solve the case. 

He’s seen the determination in Detective Taylor’s eyes. The man wants the head of whoever did this. Probably he would like it on a platter, but knowing Detective Taylor, he’ll settle for within the bounds of the law. 

John wishes he’d hurry. He doesn’t like having his hands tied like this. It was one thing to keep his hands tied for Helen’s sake, another altogether now that someone has put him in the cross hairs of a grudge that was (probably) not his fault. 

Patience is a virtue that he’s lost since Helen’s death. Now he’s going to have to learn to cultivate it again. And he doesn’t really want to.

(-)

Time ticks by. Now, more than before, John feels it as it passes. The alarm in Leila’s eyes every time he leaves to drop the mail off. The thin line Mac’s mouth forms into when he comes through the room and his eyes rest on the table where the flower vase was.

Adam’s eye and other injuries heal. His attempt to joke that next time he won’t touch flowers that aren’t for him falls flat. There was no Detective Muldoon. There never was. It was a ruse, and it worked. 

Mac has scoured every known enemy that the lab has that might be capable of something like this. It’s a long list. And at the end of it, he’s no closer to finding the culprit. John can read the frustration in his face. John’s fingers, the nine that he has left, itch for a the feel of a gun in them. There are other ways to hunt. Other ways to get things done. He knows them. He can’t tell anyone about them. It rankles. 

So he focuses on what he can control. No one walks past the desk without his studying their face. No one who he doesn’t recognize on sight gets in without a badge and computer verification of the badge. When an unexpected delivery is made, and Leila’s face turns chalk white at the sight of the man in the uniform holding a large package, John makes the man put the package in the coat closet and stand up front until Mac can come and clear him. The package being in the closet means it will do less damage if it is a bomb. The delivery is legitimate. It just turns out that no one called ahead to warn them. Mac’s lips grow thin. Ignoring the protests of the delivery person, who is now late for the rest of their deliveries, Mac thanks John for his diligence and tells him he did a good job before allowing the annoyed driver to leave. 

“I’m gonna call headquarters and talk to them about this,” Mac promised as he disappeared into the lab.

Leila still looks pale, but she takes a deep breath and answers the phone with deliberate intention when it rings a minute later. She ends up transferring the call to Mac. It’s from headquarters, and John wonders how it’s going to go down. 

For his part, he regrets nothing.

(-)

And then, one day, the long awaited storm breaks upon them.

It’s first thing in the morning. People are just starting to trickle into the building. He’s seen Mac go by, and Hawkes. But it's oddly quiet. No one seems to be leaving the lab. Leila comes in next, setting her thermal mug down on the desk and sliding her backpack under the desk as she did every morning. 

Someone walks in with a badge. A visitor’s badge. They’re from the fire department, here to inspect the place. There are a lot of them here for just an inspection.

John gives the badge they hold out to him a long look before taking it and setting it down on the desk. He opens the scheduling program to make sure that they are on the schedule, and see if there’s a record of the need for an inspection from the fire department. He’s never seen one happen before, but he hasn’t worked here all that long. 

As he’s typing, he notices movement and looks up. “Do not go in there!” he orders. He hasn’t cleared them to go in yet. 

The men don’t stop moving. All but one continue on into the lab. The last of men turned around and aimed a gun at him. 

Instinct made him move before cognition had fully caught up. He grabbed Leila and dragged them both down behind the desk before a shower of shots went off. 

To her credit, Leila did not scream. She sat silent and shaking as bullet after bullet impacted over them. 

The desk won’t block shots for long if the shooter decides to aim at it rather than over their heads. John hadn't gotten a good look at the rifle, but he had seen enough to know it was high powered. If he is going to do something, he has to do it soon. 

“Leila,” her attention snaps to him, and she leans closer to hear over the roar of gunfire. “I’m going to distract them. When I do, you run for the door. I’m gonna need your hairpin.” Her hairstyle today made use of a long, ornate pin. It was pointy on one end and that was what he needed. 

“You sure?” She replied. 

“Yeah,” he told her. “Don’t look back. Just run and get out of here.”

For a moment, he isn’t sure that she’s going to do it. Fear can paralyze people sometimes. Then she pulled her hairpin out and handed it to him. He reached up on the desk and found her thermal coffee mug. It was full and heavy. Perfect.

“Now!” He told her, and threw the coffee mug as hard as possible away from the door. 

The man standing there with the gun was startled by sudden movement, but then he realized it was a mug someone had thrown. Then he saw a girl running for the door. He was aiming at her when another, more pressing problem presented itself in the form of a man who vaulted over the desk and came at him with murder written on his face and a long implement in his hand. 

Before the man could finish aiming his gun he was dead, courtesy of a hairpin that had been rammed through his neck and into an artery. Just to be through, once he had the man on the ground, John took his gun and shot him through the head before heading deeper into lab. 

Directing phone calls he didn’t enjoy, but situations like this he knew how to handle. 

Another man was standing just in front of Mac’s office. Two bullets to center mass bounced off the attacker’s body armor, but a head shot cleared the hallway and John moved deeper into the building, trying to keep behind furniture and walls that weren’t made of glass as much as he could. The whole place was a tactical nightmare. 

Around one corner that was helpfully made of less glass, he could see that one of the labs was being ransacked. A robbery then. He glanced around. Where was everyone else who was supposed to be in here? It wasn’t impossible to think that they had been captured. 

One of the intruders looked up at that moment and spotted him. There was no hesitation. The man raised his gun and pulled the trigger. John dropped to the ground, returning fire as he did. The men in the office stumbled back. John was back on his feet and running deeper into the building. 

Home field advantage. John knew the building the way he knew his apartment, used to know his house. But he could hear them coming after him. 

“Jonathan!” He heard Mac hiss his name, and then a pair of arms wrapped around him and dragged him into a darkened room. Footsteps continue past them, deeper into the lab. They won’t have much time before the invaders realize they’ve lost the trail and double back. 

“Where’s Leila?” Mac demanded. 

“She should be out of the building by now,” John told him. 

“I was able to get through to dispatch before the phone lines went down,” he peered out the door of the dark room briefly before he closed it. “Hopefully no one else will come wandering in.” He nodded at the rifle that John still had. “Did you take that from one of them?”

“Yeah,” John handed it over. 

“High impact bullets,” Taylor said as he turned the gun over in his hands before handing it back to John. 

“They’re wearing armor, too,” John reported. 

"Go figure,” Taylor muttered. 

A door on the other side of the room opened and Sheldon slid in. “I’ve got ten in the fingerprint lab, and another five in the spec room. We’re under assault here.”

“Find anyone else?” Mac asked. 

“No. What else do we know about these people?” Sheldon asked, glancing between them. 

“They’re wearing body armor,” John replied. 

Sheldon took a deep breath. “This just keeps getting better. Do we know what this is about?”

“Didn’t ask,” John told them.

“It could be evidence that they’re after.” Mac looked at the pair of them. “We’ve got to get out of here. Sheldon, where’s your gun?”

“My office. In the desk.”

“We can get him another one,” John offered.

Mac exhaled. “We’re gonna have to. Sheldon, I want you to hang back. Follow at a distance but stay out of the line of fire. Jonathan, I want you with me. We’re gonna clear this lab or clear a way out of it. Let’s move out.”

They moved out of the dark room, slowly, carefully, clearing each room and doorway as they came across it. Sheldon trailed behind, staying out of the line of fire. John had intended to steal another gun for the man, but so far they had encountered no opposition. 

That all changed as they rounded a corner and came across three invaders. Mac and John darted across to the nearest wall as the attackers opened fire. 

John returned fire, aiming for the heads. His rifle was higher powered and flung bullets out at faster speed, a fact he found to his advantage. Mac was more careful with his shots, but the battle was brief. As soon as the men were down, John entered the room and stripped their assailants of their weapons, tossing one gun to Sheldon and taking more bullets for his gun. He looked at Mac as he did. “Tactical nightmare.”

“The city of New York wanted a bright modern building for their crime lab,” Mac knew what he meant. “That translated to lots of glass and open spaces. Complain to the city fathers when this is done. I’ll back you on your complaint.” He turned to Sheldon. “Ready?”

Sheldon nodded, once. They don’t know what they’re getting into. Neither of them knew what they’re getting into, but John thinks he knows. This armor he’s seen before, fought against before. 

Samaritan wants something in this crime lab. John doesn’t have a lot of experience with Samaritan, but the experience he does have tells him that the lab is now in over their heads. Samaritan destroyed the High Table, made it non-functional as an organization. If Samaritan wants something from this lab, there’s little that the three of them can do to stop it. 

Mac’s cell phone rings. Sheldon winces at the sound. Mac pauses. John moved forward. Cleared the door. Made sure no one was in the room beyond. He kept his gun at the ready as Mac talked behind him, tersely, quietly, into the device. 

“Flack?” Sheldon asked as soon as the phone call ended. 

“Flack,” Mac confirmed, looking at Sheldon. “Help is on the way.”

That’s good to hear, assuming Samaritan doesn’t intend to simply kill everyone in the lab to get what it wants. It might leave a lot of it’s own agents to be slaughtered, but every criminal organization that John has ever worked for had that attitude towards it’s lower-ranked agents. He doesn’t find it too much of a stretch that Samaritan would act the same way. In spite of their armor, he had managed a wholesale massacre on Samaritan’s agents that day with the Bowery King’s men, and it hadn’t stopped more and more reinforcements from coming until he was forced to retreat, overwhelmed by sheer numbers and out of bullets to keep shooting at them. 

All he can hope is that covering up a shootout on a police lab will be too much for Samaritan and that that will be their way out. 

“Let’s go on,” Mac said, and they started to move forward. Luck was not on their side. Around the next turn in the hallway there were more invaders. 

Sheldon’s gunfire was rapid, though not aimed well. It worked to drive the intruders back. Mac, taking cover as best he could near the wall, used the confusion that Sheldon had created to take precision shots at the intruders and drop them, one after the other. 

John’s attention had been attracted by movement in the room beyond, and he slipped into the lab that they were in front of. Inside, he found two of the intruders rifling through the drawers. Three bullets, two to the armor and one to the head for each agent, dropped them. 

Someone lunged out of the corner of the room at him. He was knocked back. John raised the gun. Maybe he still had bullets. But the gun clicked. He tossed the useless weapon aside and prepared for hand-to-hand combat.

(-)

Martine Rousseau had not balked when told that Samaritan wanted to raid the NYPD crime lab. There was information there about the Correction that hadn’t been purged as thoroughly as first thought, and that evidence had somehow wound up in the crime lab. Now it needed to go away before the Department could investigate it more thoroughly.

After a few weeks of setting up the lab to make it look like some group had it out for the crime lab, Samaritan had acted. All of it’s agents for today, with the exception of Martine herself, had past history with the police, something that would set them up for the fall when this was all over. Even now, she knew that Samaritan was creating evidence of collusion between them, phone calls, text messages, emails. She was the only one in the group with a new identity, with no trace of who she was or where she had come from. 

The only thing that Samaritan hadn’t counted on was who would be at work this early. Most of the detectives weren’t in yet. The night shift had gone home early after being given the green light to do so courtesy of the chief of police, or at least an email that Samaritan had sent from the police chief’s email during normal business hours. 

But the two day detectives who’d gotten in early and the two receptionists hadn’t been planned for. And they were turning out to be the bigger problem. 

When the dark-haired man in the dark suit slipped into the lab and shot and killed the two agents who were with her, Martine knew she had a challenge on her hands. He outweighed her by at least one hundred pounds and was taller than her. She would have to handle him differently. 

He heard her, swung around to face her, but his gun was empty. Martine pulled her backup pistol, an unregistered gun, and took aim at him as he tossed his useless gun aside. 

She managed to get one shot off at him, but he had already grabbed on to her and twisting her wrist away from him when the shot was fired. He winced, stumbled, but didn’t let go. She couldn’t pull her wrist back, and had to drop the gun when he wouldn’t stop twisting it. She jabbed her elbow into his face, forcing him to back away. 

Hesitation would make the mission a failure, so she didn’t hesitate.

(-)

Ares this woman was not. There was nothing rash about her attacks, no feud between them that needed to be settled. It made her more dangerous.

She had caught a lucky blow with her elbow and she didn’t waste her advantage. She stayed out of reach of his attempts to grab her, throw across the room, until she had gotten behind him. Then she had lunged onto his back, tightening her arm around his throat to cut off his air. 

John tried to grab her arm and yank it off, but with her hand she had pulled a blade from somewhere and stabbed him when he attempted to free herself from him. His arms were riddled cuts now, and he could not get her off. 

He tried to shove his back against the wall with as much force as he could. It worked the first time. By the second time, she had lifted her feet and when he tried to shove her against the wall again, used her feet to keep him from impacting her into the wall. 

John tried to drop to the ground and roll forward, but she didn’t let go. He stumbled back up to his feet, glancing around through the black spots in his vision for an improvised weapon in the room, something her could use to get her off of him before he passed out. 

A resounding crack echoed just then, and the pressure around his neck was relieved as the woman fell to the ground. Mac was there, gun held at the ready, and John realized, a little slower then normal, that Mac had pistol whipped her to get her off of him. 

“Keep your hands where I can see them!” Mac warned, ready to fire. But the woman didn’t listen. She pulled out a canister and dropped it on the floor. The flash grenade went off a moment later and sent John and Mac flying backwards. 

When John pulled himself up off the floor, the woman was gone. 

Mac was up on his feet first. He looked at the doorway in disgust, but stopped to offer John a hand up. “You alright?”

“I will be,” John told him. 

Mac just nodded. He must have seen worse overseas, John thought. Sheldon came into the room, walking with a limp. “Three more down in the hallway,” he reported. 

“There can’t be that many more left in the building,” Mac noted. 

Sheldon was looking at John. “Are you alright?”

“Yeah.”

Sheldon didn’t look like he believed it, but he frowned and said nothing else, instead handing John a pair of clips for the rifle before he picked up the gun and handed it back to the former assassin. 

The sound of sirens was faint but audible as they cleared the hallways and labs. The woman from earlier was gone, as far as John could tell. No one else seemed to notice. There were no more intruders, though there were plenty of dead ones lying around the place now. 

“Mac!” Flack was coming towards them, followed by a SWAT team. “What happened?” He didn’t wait for Mac to answer before he instructed the SWAT officers. “Spread out. Clear the whole building. Make sure no one else is in here.”

“No one should be here, sir. The night staff was sent home,” one man reported. 

“What?” Flack and Mac both asked. 

“Never mind. We’ll look into that later,” Mac instructed. He looked at Flack. “Lab got attacked,” Mac stopped by one of the bodies and ripped the mask and helmet off the man. “This is Larry Jones. Arrested three years ago, just got out. Swore revenge on us for sending him up for robbery.”

“We just looked into him after the threats against the lab,” Flack noted. 

“This one, too,” Sheldon had taken the mask off another intruder. “Leo Thorn. We talked to him during that investigation.”

“So this place just got attacked by all of it’s enemies,” Flack shook his head and turned away to look at John. “Telfer, I got EMS downstairs. I’m gonna send up. It looks like you need to talk to them.” He glanced at Mac, who seemed unharmed. Sheldon had been limping, though. "Hawkes, you too. Let's go."

There was only one thing that concerned John about it. “My dog is at home...”

“Give me your keys,” Mac said. “And go with Flack. I’ll go to your apartment and look after your dog until you get back.”

(-)

“When you said you were gonna take care of John’s dog, I didn’t think you’d just drop it off at the lab and run over here,” Flack said as he took a seat in the hospital waiting room across from Mac. “Does that dog have a name?”

“I figured Lindsay would keep an eye on the dog for me ‘til I go out of here,” Mac said. “And as far as I can tell, no, the dog does not have a name.”

“So what’d they say about John?”

“Gunshot wound. They want the bullet out. I want the bullet out, for evidence. Cuts. Other then that he’s fine."

"Sheldon?"

"Also a gunshot, but it looks like it's a ricochet. It was an in and out through his calf, so the bullet's still in the lab somewhere." Mac wasn't happy, but there was something he couldn't deny about the matter. "That could have been a lot worse.”

“Well John’s probably the reason it didn’t get worse. We got the security tapes from the lab. He was a one-man army.” Flack leaned back in his chair. “I want this guy working for me, Mac, out in the field somewhere. He’s wasted behind that desk.”

“He’s former military, special ops. I’m not surprised to hear about that. But I plan to offer him a job first. I also don’t plan on forcing him to take a different job if he doesn't want it.” Mac leaned forward. “Unless I miss my guess, he went through something bad, and sometimes soldiers who’ve been through things like that don’t want to go back into the field.”

“You can ask him. And if he turns you down, I’ll ask him.” Flack replied. “Other than that, all the people in that lab were people that you had investigated previously for making threats against the lab. We’re going through computers, talking to people, and it looks like somehow these people were all in touch with one another and made plans to storm the lab.”

“And their body armor?”

“Still working on that,” Flack admitted. “But the threat seems to be over.”

“Good. I’m tired of people attacking my home turf,” Mac said. 

Flack got up, clapped the other man on the shoulder, and headed for the door.

(-)

“And tell me, my dear, how was your mission today?” Greer asked the woman standing in front of him at Samaritan’s headquarters.

“All the remaining evidence for the Correction has been removed from the lab or destroyed,” Martine reported. It didn’t matter that some of the people that Samaritan had targeted to destroy had died today at the hands of the NYPD. That was just a bonus as far as the AI was concerned: all part of the plan. 

“Excellent,” Greer said, pleased. “Things are progressing nicely. For your next assignment, you'll be in Vermont..."

(-)

When John awoke, it was with the feeling that someone was watching him. Then he saw it. Reese was sitting by his bed.

“Thought you worked in the other borough,” Wick muttered. 

“Yeah. Dropped by for a visit.”

“Samaritan,” Wick asked. 

“Yep. Stealing evidence.”

“I wondered. Threat over?”

“Not sure. Once Finch tells me, I’ll tell you.” Reese told him. 

Silence settled. It was broken a few minutes after that when the door opened and Detective Fusco stood there, looking at them. “What are you two doing, communicating by telepathy?”

“They teach you how to do that in the military, Fusco,” Reese said, straight-faced. 

“And they teach you how to tell when someone’s doing it at the Academy,” the detective shot back. “You ready to go, Thing 1?”

“Sure,” Reese stood up. 

Fusco looked at Wick. “Thing 2.”

“Yeah?”

“Get well soon.”

“Thanks,” Wick said. 

“We’ll be in touch,” Reese promised. 

Wick watched them go, and wondered if the Machine had more then one reason to send him to the crime lab.

(-)

When John woke up again, it was to Mac sitting beside his bed.

“How’re you feeling?” Mac asked. 

“I’ve been better.” Of course, he’s been worse, too. At least he didn’t fall off a building this time. 

Mac nodded. “I would have smuggled your dog in but he’s a bit big for that. What’s your dog’s name? Lindsay wants to know.”

“He doesn’t have one.”

Mac considered it, and John knew Mac was going to pretend he forgot to ask and leave him to take the heat from Lindsay later on. 

“They say you’ll be out of here in a few days,” Mac said. “When you get out, there’s something I want to talk to you about. Nothing bad, I promise. 

John nodded. “Alright. Was anyone else in the lab?”

“No. Just the three of us,” Mac told him. That was another matter that was rather confusing. The lab had had to be treated for bedbugs overnight, at least according to the email that the Chief had sent out, but it had only been sent to the overnight shift, and there had been exterminators in overnight. Security footage proved it. But it had been an easy way to empty the lab. “I appreciate your help.” He stood up. “We’ll be waiting for you to come back.”

(~*~*~*~)

**Epilogue**

Using a crutch to get around was not something John enjoyed, and he was rather annoyed with Mac Taylor for wanting the bullet out to compare to the others that had been used in the lab. The bullet’s trajectory had left it near his hip, and the doctors had, in his opinion, torn him up pretty good trying to get the bullet out.

“You know, you could have called for a ride,” Stella Bonasera said as John achieved the top of the staircase, exiting the subway. 

“You don’t look like you have a car right now,” he replied. 

“It’s in the shop, but Danny would have gotten you, Or Mac.”

Mac has been taking care of his dog this whole time, so he doesn’t want to call Mac. And he doesn’t have Danny’s number. “Yeah.” 

Stella held the door open for him. “Thanks,” he said. 

“You look like you could have used another week off work,” Stella told him as they entered the building. 

“They could have left the bullet in,” he grumbled as he pushed the button for the elevator. He’s suffered the aftereffects of an explosion with less trouble afterwards than what this surgery has given him, but he doesn’t tell Stella that. 

“Not based on where it ended up,” Stella replied. “The doctors were afraid that given enough time it would rip open the artery it was pressed against.”

They go to the lab. The receptionist desk is empty. Somehow, John knows that this time Leila won’t come back. But there’s an envelope on his keyboard. He pauses to pick it up as Stella goes further into the lab. It’s an invitation to Leila’s wedding. John smiles at it, a little sadly, and tucks it into his suit jacket before heading into the lab. 

Mac is waiting, and waved him in as soon as he was in line of sight of the office. He manages to get through the door with his crutch. “How are you feeling?” Mac asked. 

“I’ve been better,” John replied. 

“Have a seat.” Mac waiting until John had sank down into the offered chair. “I don’t want to push you into anything you don’t want to do, Jonathan, but you’ve got a lot of talent and you could do more than work as a receptionist. Would you be interested in working for the lab? We could train you to work in here. If you aren’t interested, Detective Flack would like to have you work with him.”

John thought about it. “I’d like some time to think about it.”

Mac nodded. “That won’t be a problem.” 

John noticed, as he looked around the office, the pair of food bowls on the floor near the wall. “They put the glass back up.”

“Yeah, they did. I tried complaining about it, but I was told that’s what insurance was for,” Mac replied. He got to his feet. “Feel like taking a walk? I can’t let your dog into the labs proper, since there's a risk of evidence contamination, but I’ve had him in my office and Lindsay takes him to the break room. And out nine or ten times a day.”

John nodded and struggled back to his feet, taking his crutch, and followed Mac out of the room. 

They walked to the break room. Danny was audible before they got to the door. “Montana! Stop feedin’ that dog under the table!”

“But he looks hungry!” Lindsay protested as Mac opened the break room door to let John in. 

“He looks like he knows an easy mark when he finds one,” Danny muttered before taking a bite out of his own breakfast sandwich. The dog in question took off at that moment, alerting the pair that they weren’t alone. 

“John! You’re back!” Lindsay exclaimed. 

“How’re you feeling?” Danny asked. 

John was trying to pet his over-excited dog and not fall over. “I’m okay.”

“I watched the surveillance footage of that attack. It looked like somethin’ out of a video game,” Danny told him. “You musta got some mad training in the Marines.”

“The Marines are known for it,” Mac pointed out. 

John was still petting his dog. For the first time since he’d come out of retirement, he felt like maybe there was a future here. Maybe this one wouldn’t get away from him. 

For a change, he was interested in finding out.

**Author's Note:**

> I enjoyed this but I'm glad it's been moved out of my head. The ambiguous ending is on purpose. The original final ending that I had thought about would have been set at the end of Person of Interest and would have entailed Fusco introducing Wick to Shaw to be her new partner, working on behalf of the New Machine, but I don't know. Maybe John would rather work at the crime lab with that family of misfits. So I left it alone. Decide for yourself which option would work out best for John in the long run. 
> 
> I hope you enjoyed it too! Thanks for reading!


End file.
